In 2020, Japan proposed a new law on copyright related to anime and manga. This was big news at the time and everyone knew about it. As soon as the beginning of January 2021, almost immediately, Japanese companies and publishers all began to “work on” to suspend copyright and potentially sue or take down websites showing pirated cartoons.
KissAnime, Simply.Moe, and other sites that stream anime-focused files, host links and videos, and allow users to stream or download illegal movies and TV shows for free disappeared since the copyright issue arose again. Even in fact, there was an arrest that took place in 2020 in Japan. Previously, the Osaka district court had sentenced 3 administrators of the website to share pirated manga links – Haruka Yume no Ato with sentences ranging from 28 to 42 months.
Here are two examples of websites profiting from aggregating and sharing pirated movie links.
Website made $4,000 profit with only 2 months of piracy
As pointed out by TF:
“Last month, the Ayase Metropolitan Police Department filed charges against a man who operated a website that provided links to a pirated website that provided approximately 30,000 unauthorized content. The 37-year-old man himself This business is said to have earned the equivalent of approximately US$4,000 in a recent two-month period.”
As for profiting from piracy, it’s easy if you know how to run a website, but is the $4,000 profit worth your trouble with the law and potential arrest? Are not? The 37-year-old could also face a $45k fine and potentially up to five years in prison.
From this incident it can be seen that times have changed, meaning that sites like KissAnime that can make thousands of dollars from piracy are now less likely to happen. Especially if you are in Japan.
Website that provides 2500 pirated Japanese movies
“The platform has not been named, but is believed to have provided links to approximately 6,000 movies and TV series, including approximately 2,500 Japanese and 3,500 foreign films. The linked infringing content has been uploaded to an online hosting site overseas and available for streaming. Multiple links to illegal uploads are placed for each work so that if one link is removed, the other will still work. .”
Obviously the platform has a much more sophisticated way of working. The fact that this website specializes in aggregating and providing links to other pages containing pirated content is an indirect act of copyright infringement by supporting the release of pirated copies.
Up to now, although there have been many strong sanctions, the battle to protect copyright in the publishing field in Japan is still very tough, because even the authorities cannot know how many pages there are. Linking website exists.
